February 2012 - AS-AP presents panel discussion to be held at the College Art Association's 100th Annual Conference in Los Angeles

“What is Alternative Today about ‘Alternative Art Spaces’?”

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Art Spaces Archives Project(AS-AP) announces a panel discussion entitled “What is Alternative Today about ‘Alternative Art Spaces’?,” to be held at the College Art Association’s 100th Annual Conference on Saturday, February 25, 2012, from 12:30-2pm in the West Hall Meeting Room 502A at the Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa Street, in Los Angeles, CA.

Over the past eight years Art Spaces Archives Project has presented panels at the annual College Art Association Conference that have addressed issues related to the contemporary arts and archives by investigating institutional models and identities, institutional holdings, and the organizational histories of living and defunct alternative art spaces. Transcripts of each of the panels can be accessed from the Resources section of the as-ap.org site.

As awareness of the cultural, economic, and artistic contributions art spaces make within local and regional areas rises, coupled with drastic reductions in public funding over the past several years; a second wave of ‘alternative art spaces’ has emerged. This second wave builds on the historic lineage and genealogy of alternative practices employed by first wave spaces, while making significant new contributions through adaptation of earlier models and definitions. This year’s panel examines the evolution of the term ‘alternative’ as it has been historically defined since the 1960s, the assumptions implicit in the term and the practices associated with it, in relation to more recent manifestations as an examination of what constitutes ‘alternative’ today.

Panelists include: Caitlin Jones, Executive Director of the Western Front Society in Vancouver, British Columbia; Angie Keefer, co-founder of The Serving Library; and Ronni Kimm, co-editor of Dispatches and Directions: On Artist-run Organizations in Los Angeles and former Director of ART2102 in Los Angeles. The panel will be moderated by Ann Butler, Project Director of AS-AP, and Director of the Library and Archives at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

About the Panelists

Caitlin Jones is the Executive Director of the Western Front Society in Vancouver, BC. Prior to this appointment she had a combined curatorial and conservation position at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and was the Director of Programming at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York. As a curator and researcher, Jones has also been responsible for developing important tools and policy for the preservation and documentation of electronic and ephemeral artworks. She was a staff writer for Rhizome and her other writings on contemporary art and new media have appeared in a wide range of periodicals and other international publications including: The Believer, Art Lies, CoryArcangel: A New Fiesta in the Making (exhibition catalog), Nam June Paik: Global Groove 2004 (exhibition catalog) and an upcoming edition of the Documents of Contemporary Art series published by Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press.

Angie Keefer is a New York-based writer, editor, amateur engineer, and occasional librarian whose speculative non-fiction traces circuitous routes through highly specialized information. Along with Dexter Sinister, she is co-founder of The Serving Library, a non-profit artists' organization dedicated to publishing and archiving in a continuous loop; and co-editor of The Bulletins, The Serving Library's bi-annual publication.

Ronni Kimm is an artist, organizer, and educator based in Los Angeles. As the director of ART2102, a nonprofit arts initiative in Los Angeles, she investigated the relationship between aesthetics, social practice, and networks. She recently co-edited and published Dispatches and Directions: On Artist-Run Organizations in Los Angeles, a compendium of thoughts, and essays including a directory of artist-run and nonprofit projects. In conjunction with the publication, she organized a series of public discussions at LA><ART, Outpost for Contemporary Art, and Human Resources in 2011.

Ann Butler is the Director of the Library and Archives at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and the Project Director for Arts Spaces Archives Project (as-ap.org). Prior to joining CCS Bard in 2008, she was Senior Archivist at the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University where she helped build a mixed format collection of archival materials relating to the contemporary and performing arts. Before joining Fales, she was the Archivist for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum where she implemented an enterprise-wide museum archives program. Ann has lectured widely on the preservation and documentation of moving image and electronic media works. She has participated in a number of international initiatives focusing on the preservation of cultural heritage materials. Her research interests include the intersection of archives and the contemporary arts; documentation and preservation issues for performance and installation-based works; and the increasing convergence of archives and museum collection management practices for contemporary art-related collections.

About Art Spaces Archives Project

Art Spaces Archives Project (AS-AP) is a non-profit initiative founded by a consortium of arts organizations, including Bomb Magazine, College Art Association, Franklin Furnace Archive, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), New York State Artist Workspace Consortium, and The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. With funding provided by NYSCA, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, AS-AP has a mandate to help preserve, present, and protect the archival heritage of living and defunct for- and not-for-profit spaces of the "alternative" or "avant-garde" movements of the 1950s to the present. AS-AP's website, www.as-ap.org, serves as an online portal for information and documentation about the history of alternative art spaces including a national index of active and defunct spaces, as well as information about archives, tools to assist in archiving, and other resources for scholars and researchers interested in alternative and avant-garde movements.

About the Center for Curatorial Studies

In January 2007 AS-AP merged with the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard. CCS Bard is an exhibition, education, and research center dedicated to the study of art and curatorial practices from the 1960s to the present day. In addition to the CCS Bard Galleries and the Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard houses the Marieluise Hessel Collection of more than 2,000 contemporary works, as well as an extensive library and archive that are accessible to the general public. The Center’s two-year graduate program in curatorial studies is specifically designed to deepen students’ understanding of the intellectual and practical tasks of curating contemporary art. Exhibitions are presented year-round in the CCS Bard Galleries and Hessel Museum of Art, providing students with the opportunity to work with world-renowned artists and curators. The exhibition program and the collection also serve as the basis for a wide-range of public programs and activities exploring art and its role in contemporary society.